Alex submitted the story below.
We hope you like it - and learn something from it, i.e. the importance of table presence.

Hello,
I have a nice hand which I enjoyed bidding and playing, and which might be interesting reading for your, like me, intermediate level bridge playing readers.

Thanks
Alex

As South, EW vulnerable, I hold:

East bids again by reversing to 2♠. Better and better I think. Sounds like he has a big hand. They are bound to double. I bid 3NT - to me the obvious bid.

I know what I am going to do. I am going to win the opening lead and bang down seven diamond tricks very quickly. As we are playing online I know, using my table presence(!) that nobody likes to be thought slow in the play. This pair certainly doesn't as previous hands have shown. Almost certainly our opponents will block a suit or make a false discard (or two or three). My hope is that I will be able to get one spade trick, one heart trick at least, seven diamond tricks and whatever little partner can offer will be a bonus.

West leads the ♠6. I can feel the tension from around the world as dummy is exposed.

E/EW		♠	9 3
		♥	7 3
		♦	J 10 6
		♣	Q J 10 8 7 5
		♠	K 5
		♥	K J 8
		♦	A K Q 9 8 4 2
		♣	6

East plays the ♠10 and I take with the ♠K.
I play off two rounds of diamonds and find East holding one and West two. So things are clearer. East must have six hearts. If he only had five then West would have raised the opening heart bid (after all, in view of his double he does have some points, Ed. Bridgevaria). If he had seven he would surely have bid on. He also has at least four spades and therefore one or two clubs to go with his diamond.

Playing very quickly I splash down five rounds of diamonds on which West discards one spade, two hearts and two clubs, East has discarded four hearts, one spade and one club. I now play my last spade hoping to do two things. I want to help the opponents think I have a spade winner I need to set up, and therefore nudge them to lead hearts.
I cross my fingers as East wins with the ♠J. He now plays the ♥A bringing another club discard from his partner. Great news. He has one more heart left for sure. I hold my breath. I have got them into playing quickly mode. All this has taken just a few seconds to complete.
Now the ♣A comes down from East felling his partner's ♣K and I know I am home. East takes his ♠A and is forced to concede the last trick to my ♥K.

3NT doubled making. Feels great. Who doesn't love a swindle? I look at the traveller. We get 10.6 IMPs. I expected it if I am honest. But what I didn't expect is nobody else at all is in 3NT. I look through the hands. Nobody even bid 3NT. Most play in diamonds our way and are down one or two in 5♦ or 6♦.

The lessons of this hand:
1. Play a long suit quickly when you know what your plan is. Your opps probably won't have time to make a plan to defeat you.
2. Table presence is available to you online - sussing your opponents strengths and weaknesses out happens everywhere
3. 3NT is the most common contract for a reason. Figuring out that reason will seriously improve your scores.

The full hands:

E/EW		♠	9 3
		♥	7 3
		♦	J 10 6
		♣	Q J 10 8 7 5
♠	Q 8 7 6 4			♠	A J 10 2
♥	9 5			♥	A Q 10 6 4 2
♦	5 3			♦	7
♣	K 4 3 2			♣	A 9
		♠	K 5
		♥	K J 8
		♦	A K Q 9 8 4 2
		♣	6

Postscript Bridgevaria.com: we think Alex did very well:
- When in doubt, bid 3NT if that is one of the options (the Hamman rule).
- Table presence is an important asset, almost as important as technique.
- Defence is more difficult then dummy play: a contract that should be defeated, very often isn't. Therefore aggressive bidding is a winning strategy.

We are not as surprised as Alex seems to be about the fact so few NS-pairs ended up in 3NT. The reason? In Alex's auction West erred by doubling 3NT. He ignored the 'Sint rule' (after Cees Sint, one of the grand old men of Dutch bridge): 'If partner makes a natural and voluntary bid in a suit in which you have five cards, you should support him at least once'.
So West should have bid 4♠ instead of doubling. That contract is on ice for EW. After that the best South can do is to bid 5♦. EW should double and South will go down one for -100.
This -100 is the 'par' result: the optimum result on a deal if both pairs bid at their best.
From Alex's score (a 10.6 IMP profit) one can calculate the NS date score (average of all NS-scores) was about 0. So the NS-pairs on average scored a bit better (0) than they were entitled to (-100).

About the defence: East's play of the ♠10 in the first trick was poor. If he had won the lead with the ♠A and returned the ♠J (if only because South could have held ♠Qxx and West ♠Kxxx...), West would have known what to do: cling on to his spades and hope for East to come in. West would have known he could even throw all of his clubs: East would have to have the ♣A anyway, if the contract was going to be defeated.

To conclude something to chew on: if South, ignoring the 'small detail' of a small singleton club, would bid 3NT directly over the 1♥ opening, could West be blamed then for leading a heart (after which 3NT is cold)...?